67. (a) Describe the process of nutrition in amoeba. Draw labeled diagrams to show the various steps in the nutrition in amoeba.
The mode of nutrition in Amoeba is called Holozoic nutrition. The nutrition in amoeba takes place in the following steps: 1. Ingestion: The process of ingestion is nothing but intake of food into the body. Amoeba is unicellular and hence it does not have mouth, Amoeba takes the food into the body by forming structures called pseudopodia around the food particle. This pseudopodia forms a vacuole around the food particle called food vacuole and the vacuole is taken inside the cell. 2. Digestion: The food particle inside the vacuole is broken down into soluble particles by digestive enzymes inside the vacuoles. 3. Absorption: The broken food particles is absorbed into the cytoplasm of amoeba by diffusion. The food particles which are unabsorbed are left inside the vacuole. 4. Assimilation: The absorbed food is converted into energy in this step. 5. Egestion: The undigested food in the food vacuole is thrown out from the cell.
